Back-to-Back: No. 13 St. Francis College Brooklyn Finds a Way Against No. 18 Princeton University to Claim Second Consecutive Collegiate Water Polo Association Championship, 11-9

PROVIDENCE, R.I.-- In a dogfight from the opening sprint to the
closing horn, the No. 13-ranked Terriers of St. Francis College
Brooklyn scored twice in the final three minutes of regulation to
break a 9-9 tie against No. 18 Princeton University to claim the
2013 Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Championship at Brown
University's Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center.

Led by eight saves from 2013
Northern Division Player of the Year and CWPA Championship Most
Valuable Player Igor Mladenovic (Sr., Belgrade,
Serbia/Sportska Gimnazjia), the Terriers make league
history as the team has now won the past two league crowns after
capturing the 2012 title at Princeton against Bucknell University
(10-9 W OT) last season.

St. Francis joins Yale University
(1972-74), Bucknell (1977-80), Brown (1983-85), the United States
Naval Academy (1986-88, 2006-08) and the University of
Massachusetts (1993-96, 1998-99) as the only programs in league
history to claim back-to-back crowns.

It took 2:16 for the Terrierrs to
go out in front as Balint Toth (Jr., Budapest,
Hungary/Kolcsey Ferenc Gimnazium) took advantage of an
ejection call against the Tigers' Sam Butler (Jr., Falls
Church, Va./George Mason) with 6:00 to go in the opening
quarter to put away a man-up score at the 5:44 mark.

The Tigers responded to the tally
by cashing in on their own six-on-five chance at 3:44 when Southern
Division Rookie of the Year Jovan Jeremic (Fr., Fountain
Valley, Calif./Huntington Beach) slipped a shot past
Mladenovic in the wake of Vuk Vujosevic (Jr., Belgrade,
Serbia/Milos Crnjanski) being ejected with 4:40 left on
the period clock.

St. Francis reacquired the lead and
some breathing room to begin the second quarter as Andras
Kovacs (Jr., Budapest, Hungary) eluded his defender and
finished his shot to make it 2-1 with 6:31 until halftime.

Following the exclusion of
Drew Hoffenberg (Jr., Rancho Santa Fe, Calif./The Bishop's
School) at 5:51, Ilija Djuretic (Fr., Belgrade,
Serbia) stuffed a ball into the back of the cage on the
ensuing six-on-five opportunity to engorge the lead to 3-1.

Thomas Nelson (So., Walnut
Creek, Calif./De La Salle), who finished as the runner-up
in the Tournament Most Valuable Player balloting, cut the lead in
two as he curved in a shot with 5:19 remaining on the clock to
close within 3-2. However, Liam Veazey (So., Dallas,
Texas/Bryan Adams) put SFC back on the board 18 seconds
after Nelson's marker with one of his own to return the scoring
disadvantage to two at 4-2 with 5:01 glowing down from above.

The pattern of back-and-forth
scoring continued for the remainder of the first half as the
Terriers matched even effort by the Tigers to close within one or
knot the game prior to the halftime buzzer.

Hoffenberg and Nathan
Kotylak (Jr., Vancouver, Canada) traded strikes at 2:45
and 2:19, respectively, to make it 5-3, before Jamie
Kuprenas (So., Los Angeles, Calif./Loyola) and Northern
Division Rookie of the Year/CWPA Championship Rookie of the
Tournament Lazar Komadinic (Sr., Belgrade, Serbia)
exchanged advantage scores at 1:52 and 1:24 off the ejection of
Komadinic (2:11) and Butler (1:42), respectively, to make it 6-4 at
the break.

The score-counter score pattern
continued into the third quarter as Kuprenas took advantage of an
ejection to Djuretic at 6:26 for another man-up tally at 6:09 to
close within 6-5, but Djuretic responded in kind by whipping in a
six-on-five chance at 5:20 following the ejection of Kurt
Buchbinder (Sr., Long Beach, Calif./The Chadwick School)
at 5:35 to return the Terriers' lead to a pair at 7-5.

Princeton again pulled to within
one as Curtis Fink (Fr., Newport Beach, Calif./Newport
Harbor) beat Mladenovic at 4:42 to close within 7-6, but a
penalty call on Kuprenas at 4:28 allowed Djuretic to line in a
five-meter shot to retain the status quo of a two-goal lead for St.
Francis (8-6).

Needing a run to break the score
volleying between the two schools that prevented the Tigers from
pulling closer, Jeremic stepped up to rip home a feed from Butler
for an even-strength marker with 2:53 on the clock to move
Princeton within 8-7 entering the fourth quarter.

Facing the potential for a Tigers'
rally, Komadinic attempted to thwart Princeton's run by banking a
shot off the left post and into the cage over the shoulder of
goalie Alex Gow (So., Portola Valley,
Calif./Menlo-Atherton)with 6:33 left on the game clock
to put St. Francis back in front by a pair at 9-7.

The goal, however, ignited
Princeton's offense as Jeremic lined a shot from the right side
into the upper right corner of the cage at 5:22 and Nelson
connected on a crossing shot at 4:09 to knot the score at nine-all
and make it anyone's game.

However, a counter attack chance
led to the "golden goal" one minute after Nelson's equalizer as
Komadinic ripped home a one-on-one chance with Gow to make it 10-9
in favor of the Terriers. Toth tacked on an insurance goal at
1:21 as the Terriers took home their second consecutive
championship plaque.

The win advances St. Francis to a
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship
play-in game as the Terriers will likely clash with the champion of
the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA) on Thursday, December 5,
at 1:00 p.m. Pacific (4:00 p.m. Eastern) on the campus of Stanford
University in Palo Alto, Calif. with a slot in the NCAA Final Four
at Stanford on Saturday-Sunday, December 7-8, at stake.

For Princeton, the Tigers fall to
4-4 all-time in league title games with previous losses in 2003
(8-6 L vs. Navy), 2006 (8-6 L at Princeton) and 2008 (9-6 L at
Navy) to the Midshipmen, while winning the title in 2011 (10-7 W
vs. Navy at Harvard University), 2009 (5-4 W vs. Navy at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 2004 (3-2 W OT SD vs. St.
Francis at Bucknell University) and 1992.

Jeremic led the way for the Black
& Orange with a hat-trick, while Kuprenas and Nelson each
chipped in pairs of markers. In the cage, Gow stopped 10
shots to take the loss.

For the champion Terriers, Djuretic
and Komadinic each registered a hat-trick, while Toth tacked on a
pair of tallies to account for St. Francis multi-goal scorers.

The championship marks the first in
the career of first-year head coach Srdjan
Mihaljevic as the former SFC assistant coach claimed the
Dick Russell Coach of the Tournament award for guiding the Terriers
to the program's fourth championship in eight appearances in the
title tilt.